Monday, March 23, 2009

A series on alternate employment avenues

In India, we are obsessed with our children following a well beaten track when it comes to career and employment. I still remember when I passed out of school, everyone around was asking me, "Do you want to be a Doctor or an Engineer?", as though those were the only options available. It's been more than 20 years since then and things have not changed that much. We still want our children to do whatever is bringing in the best moolah today. We dont want them to experiment with or explore other possible avenues. When they show interest in other fields, we chastise them for not being realistic. As parents we do all that we can to stifle any passion that the children may have in areas that do not have a clear track record of regular fat paychecks.

But, the most passionate, successful and happy people I have met in my life have been those that have followed their heart and done what they believe is their reason for existence. Their list of options, it seems, was not limited to Engineering, Medicine, Law, Accounting, and Teaching .

When I wrote the post Are you gearing up for the next boom?, I realized that it may be time to write a series of articles on people who have succeeded in non-traditional areas of employment. We need our youth to find something that they can be passionate about, where they can chase their dreams, have a shot at happiness and get to change the world for the better.

The basic idea behind these articles is to show that one can go down a new career path and still make a comfortable living. So, while success for most of the people we are going to meet in this column may not be defined in terms of money alone, my articles will concentrate a bit more in that area, as I find most parents in India today understand that language better.

1 comment:

i believe the health and medicare service industry can be one of the horizon industries that can fully bloom in the near future , i can see that happening in my insurance field, what with a lot of outsourcing happening in third party claim and medical formalities, the numbers are just going to go up, i also believe one should always have an entrepreneurial attitude at every turn a persons life takes... I feel the one factor which can change and that can hurt a very focussed person who is on a job hunt is the fact that the market will welcome a jack of all trades sort of person rather than a specialist , because companies themselves are evolving so they primarily would like a person who can adapt and not be straight jacketed ....